Audit: University of Miami Hospital overbilled Medicare $3.7 million

@dchangmiami

The University of Miami Hospital will have to refund $3.7 million to Medicare after a federal audit of the hospital’s billing practices found the hospital overbilled in 2009 and 2010, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

UM issued a statement Tuesday saying the university is working “with the relevant federal agencies to determine the correct amount owed for billing inaccuracies.”

In July, UMH Chief Financial Officer Darryl Caulton filed a letter contesting the inspector general’s method for calculating the refund to Medicare, saying the hospital “disagrees” with the way the figure was determined.

The federal audit covered $22.8 million in Medicare payments to the hospital for 2,194 claims that HHS officials considered “at risk’’ for billing errors. From that pool of claims, investigators randomly selected for review a sample of 200 inpatient claims for services between April 2009 and December 2010 that totaled $2.9 million in payments.

Investigators found that although the hospital complied with Medicare billing requirements for the majority of the 200 claims reviewed, 68 claims — representing $524,009 in overpayments — did not comply with agency rules.

Based on those findings, investigators extrapolated the total amount of overpayments to be approximately $3.7 million.